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Welcome to the Age of Napoleon.

Episode 64 The Last Treaty.

Thanks for joining me.

Before we get started, I'll remind you once again that you can listen to this and all future episodes

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One more announcement before we get going, the Age of Napoleon is now on

Reddit. So if you're a Reddit user come find us at Reddit.com slash R slash

slash Age of Napoleon. I don't really know read it and I would prefer not to spend a lot of time moderating it

so I would appreciate your help in making it work anyway For the last two episodes we've been exploring the

geopolitical stage at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. In this

episode we'll close out this survey of diplomacy with a discussion of the negotiations between Britain and France, which would ultimately produce the Treaty of Amiens, and peace in Europe, for the first time in nearly a decade.

Then we'll zoom out a bit and assess Napoleon as a diplomat and statesman.

As I mentioned, the talks between Britain and France were faded to be slow and difficult.

Generally speaking, the more decisive the war, the easier the peace negotiations are.

When one side holds all the cards, they more or less dictate terms

as they see fit, and the losers have little choice but to accept. But the war between Britain and France was practically a stalemate. Each side had suffered

setbacks at the hands of the other. But neither felt their defeats were big enough to warrant concessions at the negotiating table.

That's a problem because any negotiation between equals inevitably involves compromise.

We haven't really had time or opportunity to talk much about it, but the conflict between Britain and France in the 1790s was practically a world war. Hostilities took place as far afield as India, southern

Africa, and the Americas.

The British had failed to have much of a direct impact on the ground in Europe, but they had done pretty well in these overseas theaters of the war.

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